


Time For That Later

by shoeboxbrain



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Stream of Consciousness, i wrote this for closure, it's episode 26 fallout, not sure if 'major character death' is an accurate tag?, run-on sentences representing racing thoughts: the fic, short sad and to the point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 11:37:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17642060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shoeboxbrain/pseuds/shoeboxbrain
Summary: Caleb brushed the hair from Molly’s forehead and froze for a moment. Memories always seemed to affect him more than most, and for the briefest moment he was back in the gnoll mine, and Mollymauk had just slapped him to shake him out of his stupor, and for just a moment everything was the soft smell of lavender.





	Time For That Later

He took care to steady his hand as he quickly scratched the note onto a piece of paper.

> _~~if~~  when you wake up, find us through the Gentleman at the Evening Nip tavern in Zedash_
> 
> _The Mighty Nein_

“Tell him his name,” Nott muttered, “he’d like that.”

Caleb tried to even his ragged breaths. This whole note situation felt… pointless, hopeless. But, he had done it before - there’s no way to know if he’d do it again. And it was better to be safe than sorry.

> _p.s. -  
>  in case you forgot again, your name is Mollymauk Tealeaf. you are not empty._

Caleb blew on the ink to dry it quicker, then folded it up and stuck it in the front of Molly’s shirt. Beau had brought over the tapestry - that gaudy and impractical tapestry Mollymauk insisted on buying for fun and blasphemy at the harvest close festival. She was shaking with rage, and grief, and fear. Even if Caleb  _could_ say anything, now was not the time to do so.

They wrapped Molly up in the tapestry and lowered him - gently, so gently, like a glass trinket - into the hole dug by the Earthen Paw. Was Molly always this thin? This light? Like a broken bird, or an empty bottle, it was like all of his substance was held in his spirit - in his voice and his laugh and his sharp grin and burning, curious eyes, and now, now that they’d finally lowered his eyelids, there was nothing left.

Caleb brushed the hair from Molly’s forehead and froze for a moment. Memories always seemed to affect him more than most, and for the briefest moment Caleb was back in the gnoll mine, and Mollymauk had just slapped him to shake him out of his stupor, and for just a moment everything was the soft smell of lavender. His mind reeled, replaying the weeks following and every single fleeting moment he never thought much of, every hint of lavender filled his mind while his thoughts wrestled in the background -

_pointless, you don’t really care about him, you don’t care about anything but yourself._

Mollymauk calling him over to look at some ruins,

__it’d be repaying a kind gesture, settling a debt, nothing more._ _

Mollymauk, a soft and playful half-smile on his face, letting Caleb lean against him after the draining battle with the automaton,

_foolish boy, you never should have gotten attached. you never should have stuck around._

Mollymauk hovering close by in the abandoned house, standing guard over him,

_as if a monster like you deserves any of these people. as if a monster like you deserves this moment._

Mollymauk, Mollymauk, Mollymauk - every moment another flash of another memory as their group spent more time together and faced more and more dangerous situations, every concerned look and sharp grin and gentle smile the tiefling ever cast at him, the way his shoulders tensed up slightly when Caleb grabbed them after tapping into Frumpkin’s eyes and ears - in just a month, Caleb had spent more time with the Mighty Nein than he’d spent with anyone other than Nott in years. In just over a month, more memories than he knew what to do with. And his mind, always at war with itself, wanting and not wanting, never being sure if proximity was the reason for these feelings, if it was simply because Molly was there to imprint on. He wondered if all of these selfish desires and emotions were new just because of the stress of Molly’s death, or if they had been there all along, hiding under more pressing issues at the time. If part of him thought maybe someday, when he shaped the fuck up, maybe he could ever lo-  _care_ about another person again, and the Nein, and maybe there was something, or could be something and of course this whirling storm of brightness and sound was at the center. It tracked with his last experience as a teenager. Everything was out of focus for half a moment and the world was just Molly, Molly, Molly, and the thoughts Caleb never dared dwell on, questions he’d never bothered asking himself.

_you can’t dally here when the others are still in danger._

Caleb blinked the memories from his eyes and found himself looking down at his friend’s face. He remembered reading in novels when a character would look at a deceased person and call them peaceful, or say something about them looking asleep - but Molly didn’t look asleep. He just looked dead. 

Beauregard’s voice as she fished through Molly’s pockets echoed in his mind once more,  _He’ll pay his own campaign for resurrection._

He pulled the tapestry over Molly’s face and started filling the dirt in around him. Beau had seemed so determined, and the longer they waited the further the others were taken from them.

Caleb shook the memories of lavender and soft lips on his forehead away as he stiffly drove the branch into the earth just above where he’d buried their friend.

There’d be time for that later.

**Author's Note:**

> from the author that brought you that adorable fluff comes the angst fic i wrote months ago to give myself closure. i originally hadn't planned on publishing it, but forgot i stashed it in my queue for easy access so i was already posted to tumblr lmao


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